


A Question for Another Day

by slasher48



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angels, Angels' Fallible Understanding of Humanity, Castiel Cannot See Souls, Dean Winchester Bears the Mark of Cain, Dean's Soul, Demisexual Castiel, Depressed Castiel, Gen, Grace Bonds, Greyromantic Castiel, M/M, POV Castiel, Pining Castiel, Season/Series 09 Spoilers, Season/Series 10 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-05
Updated: 2015-07-05
Packaged: 2018-04-07 18:30:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4273572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slasher48/pseuds/slasher48
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel cannot see souls (once they're encased in human bodies).</p><p>But he can remember one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Question for Another Day

He can’t see Dean’s soul anymore.

He remembers it, of course. It was the memory he clung to, when humanity started to deteriorate his capacities. The light, the warmth, the kaleidoscopic rush of emotion. A comfort, when he himself was experiencing such darkness, and cold—confusion and pain, and he yearned to be grace again, to blanket himself in the core of Dean once more.

It brings him sorrow, thinking of how long it has been. Years now, and longer in Hell, since the secretive “standard” mission, since his grace first burnt Dean’s soul, since the _claim_ his brothers had mocked. Years since sewing the truth of Dean’s being into his empty, destroyed body, leaving him behind with a reluctance that caused discord among the ranks of the garrison.

Years since his fascination at first touch, since that instantaneous connection. Years since he felt Dean the way he did then—and since he understood, in a singular, significant moment another angel might have discounted, the existence of humanity.

He can still sense it. He can feel it, a riddle of his creation, without seeing it. At times it’s been torment, to be that close and not close enough. His grace has ached before, begging to be nearer. Times have gone such that he has even wondered before if that connection were severed, if he had never felt what he felt when raising Dean—would he and Dean be what they are?

A question for another day. One for when he is less sure of his depth of feeling for Dean, regardless of the grace inside him now, not his, not held to Dean the way he is as a whole.

Dean’s soul is…difficult, right now. It fights his senses when he’s near; his grace recoils and he mourns. It feels sharper, angrier, and Castiel can only speculate how that affects Dean, can only fail in reaching for him when Dean shows signs of avoidance, and marvel at distance where once there was attachment.

Can only care, soft, steadfast, and try not to falter when Dean’s salvation seems beyond his reach this time.


End file.
